From the Friar's Desk
(A weekly back-page feature of the Church Bulletin)
I WAS IN PRISON (Matt 25:36)
Those of us who visit the prisons have crossed a certain threshold many times. For the past 10 years I have consciously been passing through the reception area to the cells of the various Prison Institutions in Singapore. The prison threshold is the dividing line between the world “outside” and the world “inside”. “Outside” is the world of those who can go wherever they want, the world of those who are able to choose the people they want to meet, irrespective of the time of the day. “Outside” is also the world of interpersonal relationships, the world of families, jobs and leisure. “Inside” everything is very different. The freedom to move is severely restricted, right down to being locked up in a small cell every evening, and also many times during the day. “Inside” is the world of limited contact, administratively regulated visiting times, forced togetherness of people who otherwise would never have dreamt of sharing their living space. The keys we are given are the tools that divide such living spaces. In any such space you can find the concentrated miseries of the world: hardship, loneliness and despair.
Whenever the inmates and I sit in the counseling room the same question arises time and again: “Who is God?” Many prisoners feel very strongly that they have not just been deserted by people but also by God. In their response they read the psalms and together with the writer and Jesus they lament: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” For those people God seems to be “outside”, not here “inside”. The thick prison walls have left God “outside”. At least that is the impression many prisoners have. Perhaps part of it is their sheer disappointment. Perhaps God is closer to those who are successful, kind and productive than to those who have been disadvantaged right through their lives. And so, on Sunday mornings, we the “outside” hear the bells of the church, the sound of which call “good” Christians of the neighbourhood to church, while those “inside” ask themselves whether they should attend the service “inside”; a service they are taken to in groups, which are watched closely and which are then accompanied back to the cells. And so they wonder if that is still the one church they used to believe in, or if there aren’t really two churches, the church “outside” and the church “inside”.
“I was in prison” (Matt 25:36) – that statement should surprise us and make us think. How does this fit into the duality of the world we experience every time when we cross the prison threshold: the world of the “righteous” outside and the world of the “sinners” inside? The Gospel tells of the astonishment of those who always practise this duality. “Did we ever see you suffering, sick or in prison?” Jesus replied that he identifies himself with “the least of these my brethren: (Matt 25:40). Those who look at the face of the poor, the suffering, the sick and the imprisoned will recognize Jesus. If it is necessary to divide the world between “outside” and “inside” then Jesus is definitely “inside” and with those imprisoned.
I believe that such thoughts can help us to stop thinking of a world in which the good remain “outside” and the bad “inside”. We will also find cases where everything is exactly the other way round. Of course, not all inmates are saints. Even then, we don’t have the right to be judgmental. On many occasions, I had the opportunity to find out how these inmates see their sentence. For the drug traffickers, they easily admit that drug smuggling would not have been the way to rid themselves of their debts.
I will know that it is not up to me to judge the guilt of others before God. Jesus does not remind us in vain: “Judge not, that you be not judged” (Matt 7:1). We cannot see into the hearts of people. We don’t know the motives that led to their actions. Perhaps, I am part of those causes. I live on the sunny side of life and have perhaps failed to take an interest in those living on the other side. Even during those hours when I faced someone guilty in prison, I would recognize the untouchable dignity of man/woman, and I would see the face of Jesus who said of himself: “I was in prison and you visited me.”
For some of us, we might never visit a prison or encounter an ex-offender. However, we can still show those “inside” that there is still one Church by supporting the Yellow Ribbon Project on the 18th June 2005, which was initiated in 2004 to engage the community to offer second chances to ex-offenders who sincerely want to change. It is a fundraising event as well as an event to encourage the public to create awareness and inspire acceptance towards ex-offenders. The event also hopes to promote the Yellow Ribbon Fund which would contribute to the development and implementation of reintegration programmes for ex-offenders as well as support programmes to strengthen the family ties of ex-offenders.
Friar Martin Low, ofm
Bulletin of 11th/12th June 2005